


What If We Went to Italy

by mormorando (shine)



Category: Dong Bang Shin Ki
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-06
Updated: 2008-05-06
Packaged: 2017-10-28 05:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shine/pseuds/mormorando
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yunho meets a stranger. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What If We Went to Italy

In the morning, a coffee with two sugars, no cream; sweetness swirling, dissipating into the dark. Outside the window, acre after acre of rolling hills; their sweetness hidden in ocher bushes.

He is content like this, Jaejoong, everyday drinking the perfect morning coffee and watching through his glassless window at a vineyard that's all his.

 _If you're lucky_ , his grandmother once said. _You'll realize being content is sometimes not enough._

If he's lucky.

\---

He hears the man come up the road before he sees him, and paints him through sounds. The man is foreign, just like him, but where he is the dull, dusted colors of a tucked away fresco, this man sounds like he could be the water that could wash it all off.

When they meet –

 _I get off on wrong stop. I think going to _____._

 _Your italian is horrible._

 _Oh – hi. You speak…_

 _Hello._

– Jaejoong feels like he's had a parched throat all these years and only realises it just now. It's painful and exhilarating all at once.

\---

Summers in Chianti are dry and hot. Jaejoong spends them year after year licking chapped lips and chewing away peeling skin.

 _What is your name?_ he asks with a habitual swipe of his tongue.

 _Yunho._

A cup of coffee, tepid now, is set on the table. _Bus runs Monday and Thursday, Yunho-yah. What day is today?_

 _Thursday._

 _Hope you like coffee._

\---

During nights, wine is better.

Jaejoong opens up a bottle of 1995 _Castello di Fonterutoli Chianti Classico_ and pours a glass for them both. The dark red almost bleeds into black as the sun sinks in the distance, and the world is suddenly made up of a palette of colours that steals away Jaejoong's eyes. The night air is cool and sits heavy on his tongue; he feels more alive.

His glass clinks against his teeth. _Don't like wine?_

 _Never had it before._

Another clink, and this one is sharp and bright. _Cheers._

\---

On the second night, Jaejoong is drunk.

He cannot remember the last time he felt this way, fingers tingling and his eyesight soft. Next to him, the alcohol has given Yunho a pretty flush to his cheeks. Jaejoong thinks his smile is prettier.

Tells him so.

Yunho's blush deepens and Jaejoong laughs, echoed by the breeze darting between millions of leaves.

 _Do you believe in luck, Yunho-yah?_

 _Not as much as I believe in fate._

Jaejoong closes his eyes to the night full of stars. They're too much company when he already has one. _No fate. Just coincidence._

 _No luck. Just courage._

Those words are breathed against his lips and Jaejoong repeats them blindly using his fingers curled around Yunho's neck; finds out that they're both liars.

Yunho's mouth tastes like it holds a secret just for Jaejoong but he's always been too scared of tomorrow's and will be's, pretends like he's just addicted to the now. _Courage_ , he thinks, and finds himself pretending that Yunho is the universe and he is all the galaxies, stretching into infinity until they come back to themselves.

The night air has been stolen from him, yet his body thrums. _I don't even know who you are._ Thrums, he realizes, with discontent.

 _Learn._

He feels more alive than ever.

\---

In the morning, Jaejoong skips coffee and forgets what color the sun is.

Instead, he drinks in the musky scent of Yunho and memorizes the image of black hair against his own porcelain skin.

He learns of addiction, want, and need in that order. Then, Yunho burns them all into his skin without warning and Jaejoong finally learns of fear.

When they move, Jaejoong knows nothing except for Yunho, Yunho, Yunho and then the sting of an unwelcome _stay_ as his teeth sink into his bottom lip.

Later, Yunho looks at him like _he_ is the universe and Jaejoong averts his eyes. But he still wonders what it would be like to brew two cups of coffee every morning and then spend hours kissing the stale after-taste away.

\---

Yunho naps and Jaejoong curls into an old, leathery sofa seat, cracked from years of use.

He sketches Yunho – each hair, each lash – smudges graphite onto yellowed paper.

The discontent returns and sits heavily in his stomach, grows as more and more of Yunho appears on his paper.

Yunho's waist fades into nothing.

Jaejoong titles it: _fate._

\---

Today is Monday.

 _Can't there be luck in coincidence and fate in courage?_

 _Don't think so, Yunho-yah._

 _I got married yesterday, you know. If I didn't come here._

Tomorrow is Tuesday. Jaejoong wonders which mug Yunho would like.


End file.
